


While You Sleep

by randomcheeses



Series: Sleeping [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Shounen-ai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-12
Updated: 2010-07-12
Packaged: 2017-10-10 12:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomcheeses/pseuds/randomcheeses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed isn't going to wake up</p>
            </blockquote>





	While You Sleep

Are you insane?!”

The words echoed in the small, whitewashed room, an unexpected change from the silence that had formerly only been broken by the soft, steady breathing of the young man lying on the bed.

“What possible reason could you have had for going through with such a hare-brained scheme?! You’re supposed to be a genius, a prodigy! All that intelligence you’re supposed to have-” the questioner paused, “supposed to have had,” he corrected himself, the words choked around the lump in his throat, “between your ears and you couldn’t think to use your common sense? What were you thinking? Were you even using your brain at all?”

There was still no answer from the young man, but his visitor hadn’t really expected one anyway. Not after what he’d been told by the sombre white-coated doctor who had let him in.

“You’re not brain-dead, but you’re not far off. A coma. You’re alive, but they don’t think you’ll ever wake up. Do you- do you even know what a _waste_ that is? You could- _would_ have been so amazing, done so many incredible things. You would have,” he repeated slowly, his eyes starting to water. “You would have.”

Outside a cloud moved slightly, and bright, cheery sunshine streamed in the window, falling on the young man’s face. To his visitor, the life-giving light came as final mockery. It was morning now, the world was preparing to wake up and face the new day. But the brilliant, beautiful person asleep in the hospital bed never would. He would stay asleep, like golden-haired royalty cast down by a wicked witch’s spell.

“How dare you do this?” he snarled, suddenly angry at the sleeping boy. “You haven’t got your brother’s body back yet. How dare you leave him now? Alphonse needs you. I still . . . just wake up. Wake _up_ dammit! That’s an order Fullmetal!”

There was no answer. No smart-mouthed come-back, no sarcastic salute. Just quiet, even breathing.

“Oh, who am I kidding?” Roy said sadly. “When have you ever listened to my orders?”

Edward’s breathing hitched suddenly and Roy froze. Maybe. . . Didn’t they say people in comas could subconsciously hear the waking world? “Fullmetal? Edward? Can you hear me? C’mon kid, give me a sign here!”

But no. The moment passed and Edward’s breaths returned to quiet even things, terrible in their simple monotony.

“So much for hope,” the Colonel murmured. “I suppose I should have accepted that the doctors know what they’re talking about. But I couldn’t,” he said, reaching out to wipe an errant blond hair from the boy’s face. “I just couldn’t. Everything that’s happened to you, everything you’ve survived against all odds. I was so proud of you, you know,” he confessed. “You always made me proud of you and I- I couldn’t show it.”

Edward didn’t move, didn’t twitch. Nothing to indicate Roy’s words were reaching him. The Colonel continued anyway, feeling that some things had to be said. Even if it was too late for the boy to hear them.

“When you saved all those people in New Optain, I was so proud of you. You made me look good in my next meeting, but all I wanted to do was spend the whole hour telling those pompous twits I need to impress how amazing and brilliant _you _are. When this happened. . . how could I be asked not to hope?”

There was another tiny hitch in Edward’s breath, but Roy knew it was nothing significant now and ignored it. “That bastard of a doctor,” he told the sleeping boy. “He looked so smug. ‘There’s nothing we can do Colonel Mustang. I’m _terribly sorry._’” Roy scowled viciously. “No one using that tone of voice has the right to say they’re ‘terribly sorry’. Did he think I couldn’t see he didn’t care?”

Edward slept on, silent and peaceful.

“I wanted to incinerate him,” Roy continued. “But Hawkeye stopped me. I only got to surreptitiously singe his backside. You’d have liked to see that I bet,” he said, a trace of his usual smirk appearing. “Probably would’ve got it on camera and used it to blackmail me, you impossible brat.”

Roy paused, looking down at the sleeping boy, imagining the evil triumphant grin he’d have in such a situation and smiled bitterly.

“But the doctor’s right, isn’t he?” he said. “There’s nothing anyone could do. Only you, and you’re . . .” He trailed off, sighing in regret and reached out again to stroke the boy’s hair back- then jerked back in shock when Ed cracked an eye open.

 “That doctor’s . . . full of . . . shit, Mustang,” the boy rasped. “Now shut up for go’ssake. I’m tryin’ to rest here.”

Roy stared, his jaw nearly hitting the floor as Ed shut his eye again and began to snore. Then he laughed out loud. He laughed again and again, and suddenly found he was laughing far too hard to ever stop.

Ed opened his eyes again, a disgruntled look on his bandaged face. “Thought I told you to shut up.”

  
###

  
“Sir,” Hawkeye said, handing him a handkerchief, “you might want to clean your face before you talk to General Grumman. The, ah, rain has stained it.”

“No, it hasn’t, Lieutenant,” he replied with a smile. “They’re just tears.”  


End file.
